An article of clothing manufacture is often comprised of more than one piece. A T-shirt, for example, includes a body portion and two sleeve portions. Each portion of the clothing article is seperately produced and then secured together in subsequent operations. Because many of today's sewing operations are automatically performed, 100% inspection of the individual pieces comprising the end article is not always achieved. As a result, faulty workpieces are, at times, erroneously used in the final sewing operation. Once sewn into the final product, however, the faulty portion of the workpiece is very difficult, if not impossible, to correct. Therefore, the entire end product must be rejected.
The teachings of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 505,671, filed June 20, 1983 and entitled "AUTOMATIC SLEEVE MAKING", suggests an automatic apparatus for producing T-shirt sleeves. In such a device, the workpiece blank is: advanced along a predetermined path by a first conveyance means; its marginal edge is hemmed; the workpiece is automatically folded and transferred to a second conveyance means; and, finally, the folded edges are closed to form a sleeve.
With such a device, the blanks presented to the first conveyance means may be of varying sizes depending on the way they were cut, loaded on the conveyor, bundled and etc. Should the workpiece length be too long, its transference to the second conveyance means may be hindered. Accordingly, subsequent problems may result. Should the workpiece be too short, the folded edges may be only partially closed. The problems inherent with securing a partially closed sleeve into a T-shirt body are apparent. As mentioned, to correct such deficiencies requires time and sacrifices productivity. Accordingly, there is a valuable need for means which may avoid such problems.